Salzburg/Munich Part 2

At 10AM Saturday morning the buses arrived at Max-Joseph Platz in Munich, Germany. Our first stop of the day was Frauenkirche Cathedral for Mass followed by a short tour which consisted mostly of standing in Marian Platz waiting for the three surrounding clock towers to strike noon. At this point it was windy and very cold and I was sick and possibly dehydrated so you can imagine that I wasn't particularly enjoying myself. However, our tour finally ended and our free time in Munich began. I quickly joined the first group I found that was going someplace warm where I could get something to drink.

The group I found myself with consisted of Fr. Brad, Anna, Katie, Chris, and Bill Jones. The place: none other than Munich's famous beer hall, the Hofbrauhaus. The irony however is that while at this famous German beer hall I never actually had a beer. Instead I ordered a coke and water, because beer does not help much with dehydration. I did however try the beer hall's famed white sausages which I found delicious even in my unwell state.

After a couple hours spent in the beer hall Bill and Chris left us for the Olympic Stadium while the rest of us decided to search for some cafe we had heard about that serves thirty varieties of hot chocolate. Our trek first led us through the open-air markets which we wandered around in for awhile. We then found ourselves in a shoe store so Katie could buy a pair of Birkenstocks, because apparently they're far less expensive here than in the United States. The cafe eluded us a while longer as we took several wrong turns but eventually we found our way.

I ordered the strawberry-flavored hot chocolate and settled down to listen to Fr. Brad's entertaining stories for the next hour. For my family back home: Fr. Brad reminds me very much of Chuck Biewer, so you can perhaps imagine how much fun he'd be to hang out with for a day. We decided that next we'd go to the English Gardens when another group from Franciscan arrived at the cafe and one of their members, Joan, decided to join us.

We eventually met with some other people from our university including the resident director Vince, and Fr. Seraphim. We didn't stay long at the gardens because we had to be back at the busses soon but we did see the Japanese lake/island and some people surfing on the river - as well as Fr. Brad preaching to the ducks. Unfortunately, we had to grab dinner on the go to get back on time.

Japanese Lake

Fr. Brad preaching to the ducks

The next morning we went to the Salzburg Cathedral for Sunday Mass. The mass was in German so of course I couldn't understand what was being said. However, the five organs, enormous choir and orchestra kept me feeling fairly involved. Besides being in German, the mass was different than what I was used to in another way: at communion, instead of forming lines, everyone just leaves their pews to receive the Eucharist as a crowd - which I thought was much better than our silly lines.

Finally, after lunch again at the Sternbrau, we left Salzburg for our return trip to Gaming. However, we did make one stop on the way at Mondsee where we got to tour the church where the marriage scene in The Sound Of Music takes place, as well as swim in the lake. Thus ended our trip.

Church at Mondsee

Lake at Mondsee

Oh, and my health has finally returned to me.